


The New Wave

by peachcitt



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: ...........yes it's a radio rebel au, Alternate Universe - No Miraculous, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Ladrien | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, Radio Rebel AU, adrien agreste is in a band, also you know what?, i mean it's not explicitly ladrien but it is so whatever, it's my shitty au i do what i want
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28370256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachcitt/pseuds/peachcitt
Summary: “Do you want a show at the station?” Tom asked, and Marinette choked so violently on her spit that she had to stand up out of her chair and double over, coughing and hacking at her carpet. Her father patted soothing lines on her back.When she’d finally recovered, she looked back up at Tom. “What?” she asked, her voice half-gone from her coughing fit.“There’s an opening at the station,” Tom said rather patiently. “Do you want Ladybug to fill it?”ormarinette is mysterious radio show host ladybug, adrien is a budding pop star who really just wants to be in a garage band with his bffs, and there's also a school dance. y'all ever heard of radio rebel? yeah, this is that
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe
Comments: 13
Kudos: 29





	The New Wave

**Author's Note:**

> i will say in advance i made a playlist for this fic. it's called ladyluck fm and you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2OO7sRaLLdimi9dVlZLxGZ)
> 
> i also have songs that adrien's songs in the fic are based on, so those will be linked in the fic and i'll also talk about them in my end notes
> 
> anyway without further ado, enjoy :)

“You’re Ladybug.”

Marinette froze. She took her finger off the button that she’d just pressed - the one that was making the song, a [new sugary pop single](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4_8vqmMxLI) from local hit Adrien Agreste, play. The very sweet and catchy chorus filled the room, and Marinette considered making a run for it.

Stiffly, she turned around, facing her father, Tom.

She forced out a laugh, something even she knew would fool absolutely nobody. She tried to remedy this with a snort and a wave of a hand. “Pfft,  _ no,  _ that’s not-”

Tom grinned.

Marinette dropped her hands. Crossed her arms. “How do you know about Ladybug?”

“Your friend told me to listen,” he said, still grinning. He came further into her room, looking to her for permission before looking over her laptop, her headset, her microphone. “She said Ladybug was a prodigy radio host.”

“It’s a podcast at best,” Marinette said with a groan, dropping her head into her hands. “And- and it’s not even that! I don’t know what it is. And I’m not a prodigy. Alya is just- just exaggerating.” Something she did often when Ladybug was involved. 

“I don’t think so,” Tom said with a small laugh. “Your mother and I listened to a few of your shows while making dinner this past week. We liked them very much.”

Marinette plopped down on her desk chair, glancing at her laptop to make sure another song was already queued up after Adrien’s. “You’re just biased because I’m your favorite daughter.”

“We didn’t know that when we were listening,” Tom said, and Marinette wrinkled up her nose, picking at the hem of her jeans. Tom kneeled down in front of her, taking her fidgety hands in his. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Shrugging, Marinette turned her gaze away. “I dunno. It didn’t feel that important.”

“Alya says Ladybug is very popular at your school.”

“That’s because  _ Alya  _ made it popular. I didn’t do anything about that.”

“But everyone is listening to you.”

“They’re listening to Ladybug.”

“Which is you.”

Marinette looked at her father, and she could feel familiar nerves - the nerves she got when things started to get too big - crawl at her skin. “Yeah,” she finally said, letting out a sigh. “It’s me.”

Tom smiled, running his thumbs over her hands. “You always wanted to have your own show. You’d get so excited when your mother and I would bring you to the station.”

This was, of course, true. Marinette had always admired the radio station her parents ran, always thought the show hosts were like stars. When she was little, she’d dreamed of sitting in one of the station’s booths, spilling thoughts and laughs between music. She’d started Ladybug to get a little taste of that dream.

“Do you want a show at the station?” Tom asked, and Marinette choked so violently on her spit that she had to stand up out of her chair and double over, coughing and hacking at her carpet. Her father patted soothing lines on her back.

When she’d finally recovered, she looked back up at Tom.  _ “What?”  _ she asked, her voice half-gone from her coughing fit.

“There’s an opening at the station,” Tom said rather patiently. “Do you want Ladybug to fill it?”

  
  


\---

  
  


“I’m telling you,” Alya said, looking over Marinette’s math homework with expert eyes. “You should tell your parents about Ladybug and see if they can get her a show at the station.”

Marinette rubbed her eyes, still trying to get the sleep out of them. She’d spent her evening the night before utterly consumed by all things Ladybug - finishing up the show and then talking with her parents about what getting a show at the station would mean, when she’d be able to start, how she would keep her identity a secret. She’d only remembered she’d had homework at three in the morning when she’d woken up from a fitful sleep to get some water.

She hadn’t slept after that.

Alya pointed at question seven. “This one’s wrong.”

“I should drop out of school,” Marinette said.

“No, no,” Alya said, circling the question with her pencil - the fourth one to be circled so far. “Just pre-cal. And I can help you with these during literature.”

“Ms. Bustier hates when you do work from other classes in her class,” Marinette muttered, dragging her hands down her cheeks. She felt like she was going to pass out. Like she was going to pass out and never wake up.

“We’re starting that group project today, remember?”

“No, no I do not,” Marinette replied, watching mournfully as Alya circled another answer as wrong.

“As long as she assigns us in the same group, we can get this done before pre-cal.”

“Assigned groups,” Marinette said, turning her face up at the tree above them. “Alya, I might cry.”

“No crying,” Alya said, flipping over the page to continue looking over the back. Which was entirely blank. Alya bit her lip. “Okay, so maybe a little crying.”

Marinette dry sobbed into her hands, bending over on the bench and letting her arms hang towards the ground. Class was going to start soon. More and more students were starting to move from the courtyard where they were sitting to inside the building so they could go to their morning classroom. Marinette was going to get kicked out of school for being bad at school, she was convinced of it.

“Girl, I know you always have trouble remembering homework, but it’s gotten real bad lately,” Alya said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on with you? Is there something wrong?”

For a solid two years, Marinette had somehow managed to keep Ladybug a secret from everybody, but now her parents knew, so it only seemed fair to tell her best friend, too. Especially if she was so concerned about Marinette’s regrettably spiralling academic habits.

“‘M Ladymg,” Marinette mumbled into her knees, picking at the grass with her fingertips.

“What?”

“‘M Ldybuf,” Marinette repeated.

“Babe, I have no clue what you’re saying.”

Marinette sat up a little straighter, gave Alya a look she hoped wasn’t too pathetic. “I’m Ladybug.”

The warning bell rang.

_ “What?!” _

The few people remaining in the courtyard looked over at them, and Marinette lunged forward, pressing her hand to Alya’s mouth, something that could’ve been described as a very quiet wail tumbling out of her lips as she did so. Alya raised her eyebrows.

Clearing her throat, Marinette let go of Alya. “We have to get to class.”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I swear on all that’s good and holy, if you think that  _ school  _ is going to distract me from what you have just said to me-”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I think,” Marinette said, stuffing her pitiful homework assignment into her bag and pulling Alya up off the bench. “And you should think that, too. Being late is bad for your academic health.”

_ “Dropping bombshells  _ before class is bad for your academic health!” Alya nearly shouted, and Marinette winced, keeping her head down as they weaved their way into the building and through the crowded hallways to get to their classroom. 

“It’s fine, it’s not a big deal,” Marinette said.

_ “Not a big deal?!”  _ Alya repeated, quite shrilly.

People were giving them odd looks. Marinette glanced furtively around, trying to fight down the blush on her cheeks from the attention.  _ “Yes,”  _ she hissed, grabbing Alya’s shoulders, “because it’s a  _ secret.” _

“We are so talking about this,” Alya said.

“But not right now.”

The final bell rang.

“But not right now,” Alya agreed. They ran the rest of the way to class, managing to slip into their seats when Ms. Bustier’s back was turned.

“You’re the reason why we’re late,” Marinette muttered, trying to fix her bangs and control her breathing.

“You can blame me later,” Alya whispered, “when we talk about how you’re  _ her.” _

As it turned out, Ms. Bustier had in fact noticed that they were late. Their punishment was not being assigned to the same group, even though Ms. Bustier knew they were friends and worked quite well together. When Alya tried to protest, Ms. Bustier had given her a look and pointed them both to their separate groups.

“Desperate times, desperate measures,” Alya said, slipping Marinette her own fully completed pre-cal homework as they gathered their stuff to move to opposite sides of the room. “Good luck working with Mr. Handsome Boy and Miss. Queen Bee. You can do it. I believe in you.”

“Did you think nicknaming them would make me less anxious?” Marinette asked, placing both her and Alya’s pre-cal worksheets in her literature folder.

“Yeah. Did it work?”

“No.”

“You’re doing great.”

“Thanks.”

Marinette hugged her folder to her chest, looking at her group which was composed of herself, Chloe Bourgeois, and Adrien Agreste. She felt like she might die.

Adrien caught her gaze, pretty face lighting up in a welcoming smile. He beckoned her over.

She was  _ definitely  _ going to die.

On a good day, Marinette was capable of, at most, avoiding the two most popular kids at her school. On a bad day, she might end up on the wrong end of a joke with Chloe, who just so happened to be the mayor’s daughter and perhaps the one person on earth with cold blood beating in her veins. And Adrien was.

Well.

“Where do you want to sit, Marinette?” Adrien asked, giving her a smile that definitely felt as though it shined as bright as the sun.

Adrien was perhaps the prettiest person on earth. And definitely the nicest. 

“We’re sitting over there,” Chloe said before Marinette could even think about stuttering out an answer. She wrapped a hand around Adrien’s arm, casting Marinette an unmistakably cool glare over her shoulder.

Adrien was also a budding pop star. ‘Budding’ of course meant he’d only released one EP and was already known throughout all of France and in select groups in the UK, Canada, and the United States. Marinette couldn’t deny that was pretty cool, but she was way more interested in the way he smiled and sat down and brushed his hair away from his face and looked over at her and tilted his head and-

“Are you going to sit down, Marinette?” he asked.

Something akin to the sound of a whistling tea kettle escaped her mouth.

“Do you have something to say, Dupain-Cheng, or are you just begging for attention?” Chloe snapped, and the tea kettle whistle stopped, replaced with a bubbling anger that Marinette quickly attempted to swallow.

She sat down.

“Okay, so,” Chloe said, clapping her hands primly and taking a deep breath. “I’m choosing the scene we’re gonna rewrite, and I’m going to be the one to direct it.”

“You don’t want to star in it?” Marinette asked, and she only realized she’d said it outloud when Adrien snorted, trying to hide the sound behind his hand. She felt her cheeks grow hot.

Chloe rolled her eyes. “I have a vision. And I have a full pass on yelling at you if you screw it up. Any more stupid questions, Dupain-Cheng?”

Marinette shook her head. “Not at the moment, no.”

Chloe glared at her.

“What’s your vision, Chloe?” Adrien asked, jumping in before Chloe could say anything more to Marinette.

“Okay, so,” Chloe began, visibly brightening now that the attention was all on her, “I know every other group and their mother will probably choose a scene from  _ Romeo and Juliet  _ or  _ Hamlet  _ or  _ Midsummer Night’s Dream  _ because they’re all normies.” She paused, flipping through the packet Ms. Bustier had given them with all the scene options in them. “That’s why we’re going to do something different and  _ better.” _

Leave it up to Chloe to make a mandatory group project a competition.

Chloe flipped to the right page and showed them the page, tapping the top with a manicured fingernail. “We’re doing  _ Twelfth Night.” _

“How did you decide that so fast?” Marinette asked. They’d only just gotten the packet.

“Because I’m smarter than you, duh,” Chloe snapped, and Marinette closed her eyes. She was way too tired for this.

“I don’t mind it,” Adrien said with a shrug, flipping to the same page in his own packet and scanning over the scene - Act II, scene IV, apparently. “Marinette, how do you feel about it?”

Marinette shrugged a little helplessly. Chloe rolled her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter what she thinks about it because that’s what we’re doing. And I’m going to be in charge of the rewrite.” She got out a sheet of notebook paper and began writing immediately. Marinette stared blankly at Chloe’s furiously moving hand for a moment, her brain beginning to shut down.

She really needed to go to sleep.

“The original dialogue is pretty sexist,” Chloe said, her hand pausing. “I’m going to go ask Ms. Bustier if I can change it.”

“Okay,” Adrien said, and Chloe stood up, stalking over to Ms. Bustier’s desk.

Marinette’s vision was beginning to unfocus. Her head was slipping into a very comfortable static.

“She’s a lot, isn’t she?” Adrien asked, and Marinette blinked, the static in her head clearing and her vision snapping into focus. She looked over at Adrien. He tilted his head at her, green eyes concerned. “Are you alright, Marinette?”

“Uh.” There were still some traces of static in her head. She rubbed her eyes furiously. Adrien was still looking at her, all soft and golden and sweet. She began to panic. “It’s fine, I’m fine, it’s just- tired. Me. I’m tired.” She winced, trying to get control of her tongue. “I just stayed up really late, is all. Trying to finish my-  _ ohmygod my homework!”  _

“Your homework?” Adrien asked, leaning back from her exclamation. 

Marinette, meanwhile, was panicking harder. For perhaps three nearly blissful minutes, she’d forgotten about her inability to do math and had only worried about trying to survive a prolonged interaction with the person she liked the least in school and the person she had a very big, very embarrassing crush on. But now she tore open her folder, pulling out her pre-cal homework and staring miserably at the front of the sheet, riddled with errors.

She remembered the back of the sheet, which was completely blank, and dropped her head into her hands, fingers tearing at her hair.

“Oh, God, I have to finish this before next class, and if I don’t I’m going to be kicked out of school, and I’m going to have to live under a bridge and make people pay me a fare to cross just so I can get money for, like, bread and  _ surviving,  _ and my parents are going to be so disappointed, and Alya will also be so disappointed and- and where would I even shower under a bridge? I wouldn’t! I’m going to be a disappointing and dirty bridge troll for the rest of my life because I can’t do math.” She let out a groan, dropping her head onto her desk, creating a very hollow  _ thunk  _ sound.

She imagined that was what it would sound like if someone hit her skull. Because there was  _ absolutely nothing inside of it. _

“Ms. Bustier said the sexism is integral to the scene which is  _ utterly ridiculous,  _ so I’m just going to- what’s wrong with her?”

Marinette remembered that there were other people around her. Namely, one Adrien Agreste and now, apparently, one Chloe Bourgeois. She figured if she died right now, it would actually be a saving grace.

She sat up rather stiffly, fixing her hair and avoiding looking over at Adrien. “Nothing,” she said in the general direction of Chloe’s right ear. “Everything is just fine.”

“If you’re having trouble with pre-cal, I can help you through it,” Adrien said, and Marinette wondered if the joy of Adrien offering to help her outweighed the absolute misery of embarrassing herself in front of him.

“It’s due next class period,” she replied rather weakly, finally looking over at Adrien. He looked over at Chloe, raising his eyebrows.

She looked between the two of them unsympathetically, arms crossed. Adrien smiled at her. She threw her arms up. 

_ “Ugh.  _ Fine,” she said, waving her hand at them. “Adrien, you can help Dupain-Cheng with her homework because apparently she couldn’t get it done in a timely manner. I’ll start on the script rewrite.”

Marinette blinked. “Thanks, Chloe.”

“Don’t mention it,” Chloe said, already picking up her pencil. “It’s better this way since now I don’t have to worry about you messing up the script with your stupid mediocre ideas.”

That was more like it.

Adrien turned back to her, face all open and sweet. “Okay, how about we start on what you’re having trouble on?”

Marinette remembered then that Alya had slipped her her own completed worksheet before they’d split into their groups. She very much wished her memory wasn’t so awful when she was tired, considering that if she’d simply remembered this fact earlier, she wouldn’t have had an embarrassing meltdown in front of God, Adrien, and everyone else. She also wouldn’t have to expose her failings to Adrien.

She could just apologize and say she could copy Alya’s answers. 

But then she would look like a cheat, and she didn’t want to look like a cheat to Adrien. And Chloe was sitting right there, so she would obviously tell everyone she was a cheat based on this singular isolated event, which wouldn’t be great. 

Marinette sighed, flipping her homework over to the blank side. “I was thinking maybe we could start with the stuff I haven’t done.”

“Oh,” Adrien said, eyes flicking over the completely blank page. 

She braced herself - he probably thought she was a failure and a bridge troll in the making. She wouldn’t even blame him if he decided not to help her, deeming her a lost cause. 

“That’s a great place to start,” Adrien said, smiling and leaning toward her to begin to read the first question on the page. “Alright, so there’s a trick to this question that…”

His arm was brushing against hers. 

Marinette forced herself to focus.

  
  


\---

  
  


Adrien was walking over to the table he and Nino normally sat at when he caught sight of Marinette. She was sitting with a couple of friends - that girl that was in their literature class, Alya, and two other girls. Someone at the table seemed to make a joke, and the four girls erupted into laughter, Marinette ducking her head and hiding her smile behind her hand.

It wouldn’t hurt to go over and say hello, would it? Marinette had seemed really friendly when they’d worked together on her homework, so maybe Adrien would be able to make a new friend. He could tell Nino about it and earn a pat on the back and everything.

He changed his course to go over to the table the girls were sitting at, putting on an easy smile. As he approached, Marinette caught sight of him, her smile falling, her shoulders going stiff.

Adrien’s steps faltered. Maybe she was just being nice to him in the morning because he had offered to help her. Maybe she didn’t like him after all, like he’d been suspecting for a while now. 

Her friends were looking at her now, and they followed their gaze to him, sharing looks between them. So that wasn’t a huge vote of confidence.

Still, he kept on his smile and continued walking toward them, determined to at least say hello.

Until a hand grabbed his arm, pulling him nearly a full 180 degrees around. “Adrikins!” Chloe exclaimed, smiling brightly at him.

“Oh, hey, Chloe,” Adrien said, glancing back at Marinette’s table. She was still looking at him. He waved. She lifted her hand a little weakly in return. 

He’ll take it.

“So I was thinking,” Chloe said, holding onto his arm and beginning to steer him away from Marinette’s table, “you know how the End-of-the-World dance is soon? Well, we should go together.”

“Oh,” Adrien said, stumbling along as Chloe walked briskly toward the table that she normally sat at with her friend Sabrina. He gingerly pulled himself out of her grasp. “You know how it is with my father. Since I already asked him to let me work that part time job, I don’t think he’ll say yes to letting me go to the dance.”

Not that he  _ wanted  _ to go to the dance. The End-of-the-World dance that was always held after le bacs for the students to blow off steam after all the stress of the exam had never seemed all that fun to Adrien - he wasn’t really a party person, no matter how many parties his father made him attend to further his career. 

Chloe waved her hand flippantly. “My dad can talk to your dad, no biggie. And come on, it’ll be  _ fun,  _ Adri,” she said, taking his hand and swaying it back and forth. “I already have my dress picked out, and I have a fantastic idea for how we can color coordinate.”

“That sounds cool,” Adrien said, trying his best to sound genuine. “But I’m really busy as it is-”

“And I’m running for Queen of the World! So you can be my running mate and be King of the World.” She said this as if she imagined it to be particularly enticing to Adrien. “It’s going to be great.”

And really, Chloe was never someone that Adrien was able to say no to. They’d known each other for so long, and throughout all that time, Adrien had learned that if there was one thing that was true about Chloe, it was that she always got what she wanted. She wouldn’t give up asking Adrien until he said yes.

So, to save a whole lot of trouble for his future self, he gave her a smile and a nod. “Sure, Chloe. I’ll go with you.”

Chloe let out a very loud squeal, clapping her hands together and throwing her arms around him. “Thank you thank you thank you,” she said, squeezing him tight. “It’s gonna be so fun and we’re going to be King and Queen of the World!”

Before Adrien could say anything else, Chloe let go of him and waltzed over to where Sabrina was waiting. Adrien stood there for a second, watching Chloe babble to Sabrina about End-of-the-World plans and dresses and shoes and whatever. He smiled to himself. Parties really were a drag, but Chloe was his friend. If he was going with her, maybe it would be fun.

An arm looped around his shoulder, and Adrien turned his head to see Nino. “Hey, man,” he said, and Nino stepped back so they could do their signature handshake as they walked to their table.

“‘Sup, dude?” Nino asked as they sat down, and Adrien sighed.

“It looks like I’m going to the dance with Chloe,” he said, and Nino grinned.

“Dude, I was just about to tell you how I was thinking about asking that girl I’ve been telling you about,” he said, and Adrien relaxed a little more. If Chloe  _ and  _ Nino were going, then Adrien’s chances of having fun were very suddenly skyrocketing. “I’ve just been thinking of a way to ask her.”

“Why not just straight up?” Adrien asked, and Nino wrinkled his nose, picking at his sandwich until the bread lined up perfectly. 

“I like her, man. I want it to be romantic.”

“Oh, right.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Flowers?” Adrien asked, a little helplessly. “Girls like flowers, right?”

“She’s not the flowers type,” Nino said, shaking his head. “At least, not the bouquet type. Or maybe  _ I’m  _ just not the flowers type.”

“What? Come on, I would definitely give you flowers.”

“Thanks, bro. My favorite are those orange roses.”

“Cool, I’ll get you some for your birthday.”

“A mixtape!” Nino exclaimed, and Adrien raised his eyebrows.

“I can make you one of those, too?” Adrien replied, and Nino nodded.

“Yes, of course, dude, but also that’s what I can give Alya to ask her to the dance!” he said, fixing his hat and grinning wide. 

Adrien blinked. “Alya?”

“Oh, yeah,” Nino said, ducking his head a little shyly. “That’s the girl I’ve been talking about. Alya.” He looked over in the direction of Marinette’s table quite dreamily. Alya seemed to catch his gaze and smiled at him, also quite dreamily. Adrien figured Nino could give Alya the ugliest flowers in the world and she would say yes.

“I’m sure it’ll go great,” Adrien said, and Nino placed his chin in his hands. 

“I hope so, man.” He looked down at his untouched lunch before looking back up at Adrien and raising his eyebrows. “Band practice tonight?”

Adrien felt his mouth turn up into a sheepish smile. “It’s Ladybug’s debut on LUCK FM tonight. I was kind of hoping to tune in.”

Nino straightened up. “That’s tonight? Oh, man, I completely forgot. You wanna listen at my place together?”

“And then band practice after?” Adrien asked.

“Dude, you know it.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Ivan ducked into Nino’s garage, looking around to see Nino sprawled out on the old grungy couch and Adrien laying like a starfish on the old train-themed carpet Nino’s little brother didn’t want in his room anymore. Nino’s beat up radio from 2008 was plugged in on an extension cord, and Adrien thought that the weird indie punk song playing at the moment was pretty alright.

“I haven’t missed it, have I?” Ivan asked, sitting down on the carpet next to Adrien and crossing his legs. 

“Nah, she’s coming on in” - Nino checked his watch - “like, two minutes.”

“Oh, thank God. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since she announced it.”

“I’m sure the whole school is hanging out listening to the radio right now,” Nino said, his foot brushing against Adrien’s shoulder. Adrien pushed it away. “Ladybug is single handedly making Gen Z listen to the radio.”

“We listened to the radio before Ladybug,” Ivan said, and Nino pushed his foot up against Adrien’s shoulder again.

“Yeah, but, like, not  _ avidly,”  _ Nino replied, and Adrien pushed his foot away again. “Now we’re going to actually sit here and  _ listen _ to the radio. That’s a big step.”

“That’s fair,” Ivan said with a small shrug. “Do you think she’ll reveal who she is?” Nino snorted.

“No way. It’s part of her mystique. LUCK will probably make tons of money off the mystery.”

“I hope she does,” Adrien said quietly, and Nino pushed his foot onto his shoulder again.

“I think it’s starting,” Ivan said, leaning over and turning up the dial on the radio. A relaxed guitar riff played over the speakers, fading in from the end of the indie punk song that had been playing.

When the riff ended, there was a very small squeaking sound, followed by a quiet shuffle.

And then there was Ladybug’s voice, smooth and confident behind her signature voice modulator. “Good afternoon, lovely people of Paris, you’re listening to Ladybug on LUCK FM for the first time ever. Crazy right? 

“If you’re a new listener and have no idea who I am, hey, what’s up, my name’s Ladybug. I used to run a pretty okay podcast sort of thing, but now I have a job here, at LUCK FM. Nice to meet you. I hope you stick around to talk or just to listen to some great music.” She paused, letting out a small laugh that Adrien thought sounded quite nice, even with a voice modulator on top of it. “Sorry, I’m still just still a little blown away, guys. I mean, I’m on the radio. I’m in a  _ studio.  _ There’s, like, a couch here and everything.”

“Dude, same,” Nino whispered from his place on the couch, and Adrien flicked his leg.

“When I started my podcast two years ago,” Ladybug continued, “I genuinely didn’t think anyone was going to listen to it. It was just something for me to do while I wasn’t doing homework, and then people at my school started to listen, and then people around the city started to listen, and now we’re here. On the radio. That’s unbelievable. Thank you guys so much for giving me a more solid reason to not do my homework in a timely manner. It means so much to me.” She paused, and Adrien could imagine that he heard her smile there in her voice. “Oh, and if my parents or my teachers are listening - that last bit was 100% a joke. I’m doing great on everything school related, especially pre-cal.

“Anyways, with all that mushy gushy stuff out of the way, let’s get into the music. Here on the official LadyLuck radio show, we listen to only the best alternative, indie, punk, hipster, whatever-else-you-want-to-call-it nonsense. So without further ado, here’s one of my favorites, dedicated to all of you lovely listeners.”

The song started up, and Adrien closed his eyes.

  
  


\---

  
  


“You good on tuning?” Nino asked, and Adrien strummed experimentally on his guitar strings.

“Yeah, good enough.”

“Fantastic - Ivan, you ready?” he turned back to look at where Ivan was sitting behind the drumset, drumsticks in hand. Ivan gave him a thumbs up, and Nino grinned. “Then count us off, my man.”

Ivan smacked his drumsticks together, counting them down, and then the three of them started off the song leaning away from their mics, singing the opening chords. Ivan began the gentle build-up to the song on his drum, and Adrien took a breath, leaning into his microphone.

[ And he began to sing. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5TTisMOZZE)

But it was so much different than what he sang for his record label, for his father. So much better. The pop songs that his father wanted so badly to be his brand just didn’t sit right with his vocal chords, with his heart - and Adrien had written this song himself, alongside Nino and Ivan.

This was him, and it was about joining this band with his friends, and he put every part of him into it like he never did with all the songs he made for his father.

Nino began his verse, and Adrien moved over to share his mic, singing a little riff next to him. Nino looked over at him, smile bright and alight, and then they sang the next verse together, side by side.

And Adrien thought that this was where he wanted to be, always.

**Author's Note:**

> oh my god it's ridiculous how much thought i put into this. so before i talk about how anything else let me talk about the music
> 
> the title of this fic is from [New Wave by Waterparks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG_5gTJNbVA)  
> the title of this chapter is from [Night Maps by Waterparks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5TTisMOZZE)  
> the song adrien's sugary pop single is based on is [Dream Boy by Waterparks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4_8vqmMxLI)  
> the song the black cats practice at the end of this chapter is [Night Maps by Waterparks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5TTisMOZZE)
> 
> yes all of those song choices mean something, yes all of those songs are by waterparks, one of my favorite bands, and yes it means something that the songs that adrien plays with his band are based on the garage band songs from waterparks' early EPs. i could talk about this more but i will save you from that you're welcome
> 
> ANYWAY this fic is. so so dumb. i got the idea for it a few months ago when radio rebel was a meme on twitter and then i wrote this chapter and then i was like. what the fuck am i doing. and then i stopped working on this fic and then last night i read it over and i was like. wait actually this isn't bad. and then this morning i was said on tumblr "two likes and i'll post the first chapter of the mlb radio rebel au" and then within an hour two people had liked it and i was having to scramble for a title. so you can all thank ayu (ayushkii on tumblr) and anna (anna-scribbles on tumblr) for this
> 
> i don't know when the next chapter will be out because i have nothing pre-written but im posting this to help motivate myself to finish it. i need this exorcised from my body
> 
> also like i said there's a playlist for this fic on [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2OO7sRaLLdimi9dVlZLxGZ) that's basically what i imagine the kind of music ladyluck fm would play
> 
> anyway come find me on tumblr/twitter @peachcitt. if you want you can ask me on tumblr why i chose the songs i did. im sorry for this fic thank you for reading<3


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